[Planetary Intelligence File: Lethar-07]
Designation: Lethar-07
Status: Independent Planet-State
Location: E-43 Quadrant, Outer-Eastern Fringe
Primary Governance: OreCore Conglomerate
Environment: Class C Industrial Zone / Hazardous
Atmospheric Composition: 61% nitrogen, 28% oxygen, 8% carbonic toxins, trace particulate smog
Surface Visibility: 300 meters average; caution advised
Security Status: Corporate Militia (Paramilitary), Foreign Entity Clearance: Restricted
Known Affiliations: Black Market Syndicates, Private Trade Guilds, former colony
Notes: Lethar-07 is a planetary ruin crawling in industry. Entire valleys have been strip-mined into jagged chasms. Toxic smog clogs the troposphere like a second skin. Billions reside in dense vertical cities called smokestacks concrete hives choking on exhaust and corporate neglect. The ruling entity, OreCore Conglomerate, governs through commerce, credit, and coercion. Foreign powers operate cautiously here, but the right bribe speaks louder than law.
The voidship Sable Hare cracked out of voidspace in a stuttering ripple of light, dragging behind it a thread of fractured energy. The transition was unclean signs of damaged drive coils and a destabilized jump signature. One of the ventral engines burned erratically, flickering like a dying star. Inside the battered hull, alarms pulsed in amber while pressure seals hissed from stress fractures.
"Engine Two's still spitting fire," muttered Leah Varn, the ship's pilot and former GTF drop-shuttle commander. Her flight suit was half-unzipped, sweat clinging to her collarbone. Her short-cropped hair stuck to her face, and the orange glow of the planet below reflected in her tired eyes. "Holding integrity, but we're on borrowed time."
In the co-pilot chair, Darik Holven, the team's ex-comms officer, checked diagnostics with fingers twitching over an old interface pad. He was wiry, mid-thirties, with thin-rimmed glasses and the habit of muttering under his breath when stressed. "Nav relays are stable, local orbit's hot. Three freighter lanes in use, eight militia gunships tagged... and one heavy cruiser with no transponder. Deadzone."
Behind them, slumped in the crew bay with his back against a crate of ration packs, Eron Thassel the team's lead stared at the floor. His right arm was still bandaged, scorched from a glancing plasma burst during the escape. His voice was gravel when it came. "This mission was supposed to be a search. A simple retrieval. Scan the station, grab logs, go home."
"Yeah, well," Leah said, leaning forward to guide the ship into the descent corridor, "that's what Command always says right before something turns into a massacre."
Outside the viewscreen, Lethar-07 hung like a bruised pearl wrapped in a noose of storm clouds and industrial haze. Lightning crawled through its upper atmosphere, illuminating churning plumes of smog that twisted like smoke devils. Vast stretches of scorched brown land were pocked with refineries and dead zones. City lights glimmered beneath the pollution whole civilizations barely visible under the grime.
"Requesting planetary clearance," Darik said, thumbing the comm. "Transmitting Terran ident now... let's hope they're not feeling trigger-happy."
The signal took twenty seconds to bounce back, followed by a distorted voice thick with static and local dialect:
"Unregistered vessel Sable Hare, your transponder reads Greater Terran Federation origin. This is OreCore ATC. You are not cleared for trade or territory. Explain entry."
Leah flicked open the comm. "This is a civilian salvage team. Emergency voidjump after being attacked in unmarked space. One engine is venting. We request emergency repair berth and safe landing. Payment on arrival."
A pause.
"...Standby."
More static.
Then another voice cleaner, more clipped. Possibly a corporate officer.
"Sable Hare, your Terran ident is recognized. Berth 12, Stackgate Delta. No delays. Land, pay fee, and don't linger. Don't cause trouble. OrCore does not take sides."
"I like them already," muttered Eron, slowly getting up. He staggered a little, bracing himself on the wall. "Neutral, greedy, and doesn't ask questions."
"Perfect place to disappear," Darik added.
They cut through the upper atmosphere in a burning trail of flame, the ship rattling violently as it breached cloud layers. Through the misted canopy, the jagged edges of Lethar's vertical cities appeared like metal spears stabbed into the earth. Stackgate Delta loomed ahead an enormous port tower wrapped in docking arms, elevator spires, and anti-air turrets.
Landing was rough. The starboard thruster gave out with a sharp bang, causing the ship to slam onto the tarmac with a screech of metal. Leah swore under her breath and killed the engine.
Cargo bots rolled out almost immediately yellow-plated machines with arc welders and mag-clamps. A nearby terminal flickered with blue light as a bored port worker in a half-mask and overalls approached the open ramp.
"Name. Purpose. Duration of stay."
Eron stepped down first, pulling his coat tighter as the industrial wind slapped his face. "Emergency repairs. Three people. Two, maybe three days."
The worker looked at his datapad, narrowed his eyes. "Terrans don't usually come this far east. Lotta noise about border conflicts."
"We're not here for that," Eron said, his tone final.
The worker shrugged. "Dock fee's four hundred credits. You pay up front, or we clamp the hull."
Darik handed over the chip. The worker scanned it, then waved the bots forward. "Repairs start now. Don't leave the district unless you want trouble. And if you see any drones with blue lenses look down and keep walking."
The team moved fast. They took only personal gear: two sidearms, rations, and a hard drive sealed in a small black case. Everything else was locked in the ship's safe. The city around them groaned with life layered streets stacked like sediment, filled with grime-covered workers, neon haze, and the hum of energy lines overhead. Children in ragged clothes ran between vending machines and flickering signs, while towering security mechs patrolled the overhead rails.
A street preacher screamed about "the hunger of stars" from a rusted scaffold, ignored by everyone.
The hotel they picked was halfway up a broken tower called the Grey Verge. Rooms were cheap, surveillance was minimal, and nobody asked questions if you paid with old credits. They checked in under fake names. The hallway lights flickered. Paint peeled from the walls. Their room stank of burnt oil and mold but it was dry, and the door locked.
Once inside, they collapsed.
Eron took the cot near the wall. Leah sprawled across a chair and kicked off her boots. Darik, quiet, plugged in a makeshift signal scrambler on the window and sealed the blinds.
No one spoke for a few minutes. The tension of survival was always a thick film but it became palpable in silence. It hung there like another person.
Eventually, Leah spoke, voice low.
"We almost died on that station. They didn't even give us a warning. Just... showed up."
Eron stared at the ceiling. "We should've known something was wrong. That much secrecy? That many encrypted logs?"
"We did know," Darik said from the corner, arms crossed. "We just didn't think they'd send a damn Mandate operative after us."
The name hung in the air.
Obsidian Mandate. The UFU's black ghost. The shadow of the union law. Few in the Terran sectors knew of them but little survived the encounters.
Outside, the skies above Stackgate Delta churned with clouds darker than night. Lightning clawed across the heavens like a wounded beast. Somewhere above, unseen to all below, something else was arriving.
Something hunting.
Six Hours Earlier
Voidstation Telur-9 drifted in silence, its hull coated in a film of frost and cosmic dust. Once a remote UFU scientific installation orbiting a dead moon, it now hung like a tomb in space no beacons, no signals, no motion. Its systems had gone dark months ago. The Greater Terran Federation had marked it for salvage and recon, assigning the closest available search team to investigate its black box and determine what went wrong.
That team was already deep inside.
The hangar bay was pressurized manually. Inside, orange emergency lights flickered in rhythmic pulses like a fading heartbeat. The station's walls were stained with age, wires exposed, consoles cracked. No bodies. No signs of life.
"This place is cursed," muttered Leah, her rifle resting loosely in her grip. She swept her flashlight across a corridor, revealing streaks of black soot like burn marks. "UFU doesn't just walk away from assets like this."
Eron stood beside a control panel, working to bring up the internal logs. His brow furrowed as another corrupted file blinked out of reach. "They were studying something. Artifacts. Several, according to the internal index. Whatever happened here… it wasn't an accident."
Darik tapped away at a portable decryptor, feeding in one broken directory after another. "Encrypted backups are routed to a central core in Lab B. I can try brute-forcing it, but the firewalls are layered deep. Looks like someone tried to wipe things fast and dirty."
They moved deeper into the station, passing through labs littered with shattered glass and overturned equipment. The deeper they went, the more strange it became. A research terminal still glowed faintly in a side room, looping a single phrase in UFU code: CONVERGENCE INITIATED. PHASE SHIFT PENDING.
In Lab B, the walls were lined with stasis lockers most shattered. Broken clamps and shattered containment tubes were strewn across the floor. Symbols had been etched into one of the walls with something metallic and sharp. They didn't match any known Terran or Union dialects. Angular, spiraled, disjointed as if geometry itself had been broken and written into form.
Leah ran a hand across one of the symbols. "That's not Abyssal. Nor Void origin either."
"No," Eron replied quietly. "That artifact they found… I think it's older than any of us realize."
They found the artifact vault in the next room: a cylindrical chamber with thick armored shutters. Only one pod remained active. Inside it floated a black object no larger than a human heart smooth, crystalline, and gently pulsing with an inner light. The data panel beside it scrolled continuously: PSIONIC INTERFERENCE DETECTED. PHASE BREACH RISK: HIGH.
Darik stepped back. "This is what they were studying?"
Eron nodded grimly. "And what they were trying to hide."
They didn't hear the breach until it was too late.
A sudden ping metal struck by force echoed through the corridor behind them.
Leah spun, weapon raised. "That wasn't part of the station."
Another clang, closer. Then silence.
Darik activated the emergency relay on his wrist. "We need to bounce. Right now. Upload what we can and go."
But the lights died before he could finish.
The chamber plunged into darkness. The artifact pulsed once brighter.and the air thickened. Something ancient stirred.
Then came the sound of boots.
Calm. Controlled. Deliberate.
From the dark stepped a man clad in matte-black armor, his face obscured by a smooth mask shaped like an angular teardrop, etched with glyphs. A long coat draped from his shoulders like ceremonial robes. On each hip, a heavy-caliber pistol rested. A sheathed katana was slung across his back, but it wasn't drawn.
He stopped just inside the room. Behind him, three armored soldiers emerged in lockstep. Black Templar Knights massive and silent, their faces hidden behind jagged helms, power armor humming with soft internal reactors. They carried energy-blades and plasma shields.
The man spoke. His voice was calm. Not cruel just... precise.
"Terran personnel," he said. "You are in violation of multiple sovereign laws, including unauthorized access to restricted Union research. You are instructed to surrender all data and prepare for decontamination."
No one moved.
Darik, half in shock, tried to reach for his comm.
The man sighed. "I dislike formalities."
Then the world exploded.
One of the Black Templars moved faster than Leah could aim. A blast of blue light ripped through the air, striking the console beside her and sending her flying into the wall. Eron dove behind a container as plasma scorched the air above him.
Darik shouted "RUN!" and smashed the artifact pod's release. The casing cracked, and the crystalline object dropped to the floor, inert. Static screamed through every comm in the room.
The masked operative raised a single hand and the artifact lifted into the air.
No tech. No tools. Just will.
"Quite interesting," he muttered.
Then Leah shot him in the side.
The slug hit armor, but he staggered a step, turning his gaze to her with something like amusement. "Terrans always go for the center mass."
Eron threw a flashbang. The detonation lit the chamber like a false sunrise. For one brief second, they were free.
The escape was chaos.
Sirens began to wail as automated lockdowns reengaged across the station. The team ducked into a secondary corridor, slamming emergency bulkheads shut behind them. Darik rerouted internal doors with raw commands, forcing pathways open with sparks flying from the consoles.
"We have three minutes before they cut us off!" he yelled.
"Main hangar's blocked!" Leah shouted back, dragging a bleeding Eron by the arm. "We have to double back!"
They passed through the comms chamber. Terminals blinked as encrypted data flickered onscreen already rerouted by Union override. The Obsidian Mandate was wiping everything. No trace. No evidence.
"They knew we'd be here," Eron said. "This was a trap."
Darik nodded grimly. "And we walked right into it."
In the end, they reached the auxiliary hangar.
Their ship the Sable Hare was still intact, barely. Leah hotwired the dock clamps. Darik laid suppressing fire behind them as plasma bolts scorched the walls.
A Black Templar burst through the bulkhead and charged.
Leah screamed as she fired, emptying a clip into its shield. It staggered but kept moving unstoppable.
Eron fired a railshot into the ceiling. The structure collapsed, sending beams crashing down between them and the knight.
"GO!" he barked.
They jumped aboard.
As the ship lifted and the hangar exploded behind them, they caught one last glimpse of the operative standing calmly amidst the wreckage, cloak billowing, not even reaching for his weapons.
Watching, and waiting.
Back in the present, in the Grey Verge hotel room, Eron finished the retelling and let the silence settle.
Leah stood at the window, looking out at the polluted sky.
Darik leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed.
None of them spoke for a moment.
Then Leah said quietly, "Why didn't he kill us?"
Eron stared at the floor. "I dont know."
Two Days Later
The smog never lifted from the skyline of Stackgate Delta.
Eron woke to the sound of distant engines reverberating through the steel bones of the Grey Verge hotel. His throat burned with the dry sting of industrial ash that never quite left the air. As he sat up on the cot, he saw Leah sitting near the window, staring out through the haze. Her face was unreadable, lit only by the flickering neon of a failing holo-sign outside. Darik was gone again. Likely checking on the ship.
"He's been going every few hours," Leah murmured. "Keeps expecting something to go wrong."
Eron rubbed his temples. "It already has. Just hasn't caught up with us yet."
Down at the port, Darik moved among the crowds, head low, face masked by a dust hood. Dockhands cursed and shouted in thick local dialects as loaders hauled crates of ore into battered freighters. Surveillance drones scanned the walkways at timed intervals. He passed a group of mercenaries huddled around a food stall scarred, tired men with modded eyes and tribal paint. No one paid him any mind. That was the danger of Lethar-07: it was too easy to disappear.
The Sable Hare was still there docked and in pieces.
One of the ventral engine nacelles was fully detached, surrounded by welding bots and a few bored mechanics with stained uniforms. The repair chief, a hunched man with artificial lungs and soot on his cheek, looked up as Darik approached.
"You again. Still breathing, huh?"
"Just checking progress."
"You're lucky we didn't scrap it," the chief grunted. "That engine's a relic. Probably more rust than metal. I can get her spaceworthy, but she'll shake like hell during a voidjump."
Darik handed over another datachip. "Speed is more important than comfort."
The chief grinned with tobacco-stained teeth. "Ain't it always."
High above the planet, space folded in on itself in absolute silence.
A massive Obsidian Mandate destroyer, designation Silent Blade, exited voidspace like a ghost parting the curtain of stars. It bore no ID markers, no diplomatic channels, no callsign. Its black hull shimmered with adaptive plating, absorbing Lethar's weak sun into its skin. The ship was over two kilometers long, bristling with defense turrets and hangar bays shaped like jagged mouths.
On the command bridge, a tall figure in navy robes and with bits of ceremonial armor stood with his hands clasped behind his back.
Admiral Kothan Zhyrek, a high-ranking officer of reptilian origin, stared down at the polluted sphere below. His eyes were pale orange, with vertical slits, and his face bore the cold, ceremonial scars of his speciesThreskari, native to the storm world of Yxorn.
"We have traced the residual void signature to the surface of Lethar-07," one of the officers reported. "Search algorithm confirms the escape vessel's trajectory matches docking records from Stackgate Delta, berth 12."
"Any interference?" Zhyrek asked, his voice slow and gravelly.
"None from planetary defense systems. The locals appear... indifferent."
A door hissed open.
The Operative stepped onto the bridge.
No name. No rank. Just the symbol of the Order of Blade on the side of his matte-black mask.
Zhyrek offered him a shallow bow. "We have confirmed your prey is here."
The operative did not return the gesture. "Then begin planetary protocol. Start with formal notification."
In the bowels of the ship, a communication relay engaged with the planetary surface.
On Lethar-07, inside a mirrored skyscraper rising above the smoke stacks of Sector Prime, a massive hologram flared to life in a corporate office surrounded by marble columns and transparent walls. A middle aged man with gold rings on every finger sat at a semicircular desk, leaning back in a luxury chair made from imported Titanhide leather.
Director Vass Gorrik, CEO of OreCore Lethar Operations, squinted at the incoming transmission.
"You want what?" he scoffed.
On the holo-screen, the Obsidian Mandate operative appeared, standing still against a wall of dark steel. His voice was quiet, but it left no room for refusal.
"There are three fugitives hiding in your city. They were involved in the breach of a sovereign Union site and carry restricted data. They are to be found and delivered."
Gorrik raised a brow, chuckling. "This planet's independent. We trade with many sides. UFU, GTF, SOE, GGC, GAR, Hell even Syndicates and some 'bad apples' when the credits are good."
The operative tilted his head slightly. "Then you will be compensated for your... inconvenience."
"How much compensation are we talking?"
The operative paused, then replied, "Enough to replace your entire defense grid. And your private account balance will be adjusted accordingly."
Gorrik's greed flared in his eyes. "...Fine. But make it fast. You're scaring the traders. Bad for margins."
Back aboard the Silent Blade, the operative stepped into his quarters. The room was small and immaculate no decorations, no distractions. A rack along the wall held his weapons.
He selected two .60-caliber twin pistols, holstered them. Then he turned to the final weapon.
A katana, forged from obsidian-forged weavespine a ceremonial melee weapon issued to psion-ranked agents of the Union. Its blade was smooth and black, but shimmered faintly with circuitry. He slid it into a sheath on his back and paused.
His breath slowed. His mind reached out.
He could feel the presence of the artifact faint now, but still tethered to one of them. A psionic trace.
"They'll try to run again," he murmured.
And he would follow.
In the hangar bays, the Black Templar Legion prepared.
Hundreds of soldiers moved with absolute discipline, clad in reactive plate and storm-visors. Transport dropships lined the walls. Some bore banners stitched with Union glyphs; others bore the sigils of the Order of Blade Weapons racks shimmered with energy-sabers, mag-rifles, and ionized breaching tools. A large briefing holo displayed a wireframe of Stackgate Delta.
Their commander, Knight-Captain Vel Aethar, stepped forward. He was a giant of a man in full Templar regalia his armor a fusion of technology and ancient design, with scars etched into the surface like runes of war.
"Teams Alpha through Delta, on deck. Prepare for insertion."
Back on the surface, Darik returned to the hotel with grim news.
"Ship'll be ready by tomorrow night," he said. "But they're moving slower than I like."
Eron nodded. "We'll leave the second it's spaceworthy."
They gathered around the tiny metal table in their room, eating instant rations with makeshift utensils. The taste was chemical, but none of them cared.
"We've been lucky so far," Leah said. "No sightings, no flags. Think they lost us?"
Eron shook his head. "They're not the kind to give up. He followed us across a voidjump. He'll follow us into hell."
Then came the announcement.
Every screen across Stackgate Delta flickered and went dark.
Then the planetary emergency system flared to life. A booming voice echoed across speakers, paired with the crackle of static and sirens.
"Attention, citizens of Stackgate Delta. This is an official security broadcast issued in cooperation with Union representatives. Three armed fugitives are hiding among you. These individuals are enemies of state and traitors to interstellar law. Report all suspicious activity to your local patrol hub."
Images flashed on every screen.
Eron. Leah. Darik.
The room fell deathly silent.
"No no no n—"Darik muttered.
Then came the knock at the door.
The knock at the hotel door came twice sharp and metallic.
Then silence.
Eron held up a hand. Leah froze near the window. Darik already had his pistol drawn. The hallway outside was quiet except for the hum of old wiring and the groan of the city beyond the walls.
"No time," Eron whispered. "Back exit. Now."
Leah crossed the room and jammed a shoulder into the rear panel. The maintenance hatch groaned as it gave way, revealing a narrow duct that led down to a utility corridor. Darik crawled in first, pulling his pack behind him. Eron followed, sealing the hatch behind them.
Seconds later, the front door burst open in a flash of white light. Two armored militia officers stepped in, weapons raised, scanning with helmet-mounted sensors.
"Clear," one of them growled.
But the room was empty.
In the streets below, chaos bloomed like fire.
Massive screens on the sides of buildings showed the fugitives' images. Security drones hovered above alleyways and transit stops. Police vehicles rolled through the fog on magnetic repulsors, their sirens distorted by the thick, greasy air. People scattered. Others stared, murmured, or pointed toward the edges of the slums.
Overhead, a UFU gunship swept over Stackgate Delta sleek, black, and brutal in its design. Its scanners pulsed down in waves. Loudspeakers crackled with orders:
"All civilians must remain in designated safety zones. Noncompliance will be punished."
The locals knew better than to resist. In Stackgate, neutrality was only tolerated until it became inconvenient.
Eron, Leah, and Darik emerged into the lower slums through a hidden grate that opened beneath a waste silo. The stench was overwhelming, but it gave cover. Industrial runoff poured through canals lined with metal walkways and rotting synthetic sacks of slag. The deeper they went, the fewer people they saw.
They kept moving, ducking into shadows as gunships roared overhead. Eron stopped them near an old vent shaft and wiped grime from a metal plate, revealing a worn map of the sub-sector.
"This feeds into the sewer grid," he said. "We can use it to get under the port."
Darik gave him a look. "You really want to crawl through toxic sludge just to maybe get under the hangars?"
"You have a better idea?"
Leah pulled out a pack of filters and snapped them onto their masks. "Let's move. They'll sweep this area in twenty minutes."
Up in the spire of OreCore Tower, Director Vass Gorrik paced his office, a glass of amber liquor in one hand. His eyes flicked between surveillance feeds showing burning trash bins, fleeing crowds, and gunfights on the outskirts of Stackgate Delta. His city was bleeding credits.
He turned to the operative's holo-image. "I thought you said this would be clean."
The operative's expression remained unreadable behind the mask. "Disruption is expected. Control is assured."
"They're tearing up entire sectors," Gorrik snapped. "People are evacuating. My workers are leaving the sectors. My production output has dropped by seventeen percent since this started."
"Inconvenient," the operative said flatly. "But temporary."
"Do you bloody know how much it costs to buy off a gang war here?"
The operative tilted his head slightly. "You will be compensated. Consider this your contribution to the Union."
The feed cut before Gorrik could respond.
In the streets below, the purge began.
Black Templar Legionnaires marched in formation down thoroughfares, their armor blackened by ash and scorched from combat. Their presence was apocalyptic each soldier a walking tank, energy blades sheathed at the hip, rifles charged with sub-plasma accelerants.
They moved in silence, only the thud of their boots and the low whine of their servos echoing through the air. Buildings were cordoned off. Civilians were lined up, scanned, and cleared or detained. Drones hovered overhead, marking thermal patterns and feeding data into predictive systems.
One Knight barked an order through his vox:
"Team Gamma, converge on Sector 4-C. High probability trace pattern."
The hunt had begun in earnest.
Down in the sewers, the team huddled beneath a broken grate. Streams of polluted water flowed beside them, thick with chemical waste and metallic sheen. The tunnel curved downward, deeper into the city's hidden underlayers.
Darik pressed against the wall, working on an old console wired into the maintenance grid.
"This connects to a side lift that leads toward the east port hangar," he said. "Access control is locked three-tier override, but I can spoof the signal."
Eron crouched beside him, glancing down the tunnel.
"How long?"
"Twenty minutes if nothing breaks."
Leah kept watch with her rifle drawn, listening to the dull thud of distant movement echoing through the pipes.
She muttered, "They're above us."
"Then we don't have twenty minutes," Eron said.
Above them, a Templar team entered a tenement complex four blocks from the Grey Verge.
Their boots crushed concrete. They moved through doorways without hesitation displacing families, smashing surveillance cams, dragging out suspects. Each scanned body that failed to match was tossed aside. Those who resisted were stunned or worse.
Knight-Captain Vel Aethar watched the operation from a command console rigged into a drop-crate in a nearby courtyard.
His second-in-command approached, saluting. "Still no trace. The locals are scared but quiet."
Aethar's voice was gravel behind his helm. "They're ghosts until they're not. And when they surface... we burn the street."
He keyed his comm.
"Operative, we are tightening the net."
Back in the sewers, Darik grunted in frustration as another circuit sparked. "I need ten more minutes."
Eron looked over the makeshift map. "There's an access tunnel that leads closer to the surface. I'll scout it. You stay and finish."
Leah stepped beside him. "I'll go too. You get caught alone, we're screwed."
Darik nodded reluctantly. "Careful. They'll have recon drones sweeping the stacks."
Eron and Leah moved down the tunnel, their footsteps muffled by grime. The walls were coated with biofilm and graffiti, warnings in local codes.
They found a ladder leading up to a sealed hatch.
Leah leaned in. "If this opens under patrol—"
Eron shook his head. "We don't open it. We wait, we mark, we learn."
They watched. Quiet. Waiting.
Above the hatch, a gunship passed overhead slow, searching. Its spotlights cut through alleyways like searchlights in a prison yard. A moment later, it turned and vanished into the fog.
Leah exhaled.
Eron turned to her. "You still have the case?"
She tapped her pack. "Still encrypted. Still intact."
"Good," he said. "It's the only reason we're still breathing."
They returned to Darik just as he cracked the last lock. The side lift screeched and juddered to life ancient hydraulics groaning.
"This'll take us to the edge of the port sector," Darik said. "We move from there."
But above them, the operative had already moved.
A patrol drone shimmered to life outside the hangar grid, flickering between frequency spectrums. It caught a glimpse of psionic resonance barely, like a fingerprint on glass. It pulsed.
In the command center aboard Silent Verdict, the operative's eyes narrowed. He stood slowly from the meditative circle on the floor of his chamber. His mind felt the pulse.
"They're surfacing."
He sent one command through the network.
"Deploy. Now."
Night fell like a steel curtain over Stackgate Delta.
Floodlights bathed the port district in harsh white, cutting through the haze like surgical beams. Patrols moved in tighter formations now no longer searching, but expecting. Spotter drones whirred overhead, broadcasting thermal grids to the Silent Verdict in orbit. Civilians had cleared the walkways. Curfew was in effect.
Inside the maintenance shaft, Eron's team emerged near a forgotten utility corridor behind the outer wall of Dock Sector Seven. The sounds of booted soldiers and plasma chargers throbbed through the steel above them. The stink of ozone and hot coolant filled the air.
Leah peered through a grated vent. "It's locked tight. Two Templars stationed by the bay gate. But there's a secondary panel near the service lift."
Darik knelt at the base of the wall, pulling out a magnetic uplink spike. "I'll handle the lock. You two prep the ship. Once the gate's open, you lift and go."
Eron's head turned sharply. "What do you mean, you handle the lock?"
Darik glanced up. "We both know if I don't stay behind and override the internal failsafes, they'll shut the hangar mid-launch. Someone has to do it manually."
Leah opened her mouth to protest, but stopped. She knew he was right.
Eron placed a hand on Darik's shoulder. "You have ten minutes. Then we leave. No matter what."
"Understood."
They split.
Leah and Eron sprinted through the rear corridor, ducking under scaffolding and weaving between old cargo containers. The port was crawling with patrols. Gunships circled high above. Static filled their comms, but the signal jammer Darik had planted earlier kept them off the tracking grid.
The Sable Hare was just ahead still scorched, still dented, but intact.
Two repair droids were still active, finishing a weld. Leah pushed past them and powered up the boarding ramp. The cockpit hummed to life as she keyed the ignition cycle. "Core warmup in progress. We'll have lift in ninety seconds."
Eron rushed into the cargo hold, tearing open a weapons locker and pulling out a side-mounted turret attachment. He slammed it into the ventral gun rail and activated the system.
"Get ready," he muttered.
Back inside the maintenance corridor, Darik worked fast. The panel's encryption system was primitive by Mandate standards but laced with override traps. Sweat rolled down his temple as he rerouted power from the emergency conduit.
He could already hear movement above heavy boots.
A faint hiss. The smell of plasma. He closed his eyes and input the last sequence. The bay gate clicked. The locks disengaged.
He grabbed his pistol, turned, and ran.
The gate began to open with a massive hydraulic groan.
Inside the cockpit, Leah gritted her teeth. "We're open! Launching now!"
The Sable Hare surged forward, engine coils screaming as the deck lights blazed.
Then he stepped into view.
The Operative.
Black coat trailing behind him, pistols at his side, katana across his back. His mask gleamed under the port lights. He did not run. He walked.
Two squads of Black Templar Knights dropped in behind him from above via dropships, slamming into the tarmac with thunderous impact. Their shields activated with sharp energy pulses. Weapons raised.
Leah cursed. "We are not getting out of here without shooting our way through."
Eron opened fire.
The first volley slammed into a Templar's shield, sparking blue flares. The soldiers advanced regardless, blades igniting. Plasma bolts hissed through the night. Leah took the ship up at a shallow angle, belly turret spraying fire.
The Operative raised one hand.
And the ship stopped mid-air.
Not physically but psionically. Held in a crushing grip of will, suspended like a fly caught in a web.
Inside the cockpit, alarms blared. "Stabilizers failing! We're stuck!"
Eron turned to the hatch. "I'm going down."
"What? No!"
He tossed Leah a datachip. "This has the artifact trace. If he gets it, we're done. Fly, the moment I break the hold."
"Eron you idio—!"
But he was already gone.
The cargo ramp slammed down as Eron leapt out, rolling to his feet behind a cargo truck. Plasma fire lanced past him. He dove into cover, pulled a grenade from his vest, and yanked the pin.
He stood.
He ran toward the operative.
Gunfire danced around him, heat burning his skin. He emptied his sidearm into a Templar near him, then threw the grenade under the operative's feet.
The explosion rocked the field. Fire and smoke surged up briefly obscuring vision.
The psionic grip snapped.
In the cockpit, Leah shouted. "He did it! We're free!"
The ship jerked upward, engines roaring. But on the ground, the smoke cleared.
And the operative stood, armor scorched, cloak tatteredbut alive. Two Templars lay shattered near him. A third limped, dragging a broken blade.
Eron stumbled, reloading his pistol. His other hand clutched a pack of micro-charges.
The operative walked toward him.
Eron took a breath and whispered, "You don't get to win." He pressed the remote detonator.
A wall of flame engulfed the hangar edge. Above, the Sable Hare rocketed into the sky.
Interceptor-class pursuit craft move in from a nearby patrol path, their engines howling in fury. Plasma rounds lit the clouds as Leah swerved through vertical alleyways between transport cranes and fuel silos. She screamed into the comm, "Darik, we're up! Come in Darik!"
No response. Just static.
She grit her teeth. "Hang in there, you bastard."
Back in the port, the operative emerged from the flames, his armor cracked, mask slightly askew. His katana was now in hand drawn and humming faintly. He stepped over debris and found Eron pinned beneath a broken crate, body half-burned, chest heaving.
The operative crouched beside him. "You were brave," he said. "But bravery without power is sentiment."
Eron's gaze flickered. "I was... buying time."
The operative tilted his head. Then the final micro-charge activated. The blast lit the entire deck.
Leah pushed the ship to its limits.
They broke through the upper cloud layer, two interceptors on their tail. Railfire tore through the outer plating, and a warning light flashed red. She ignored it. The voiddrive was charged.
"Come on," she whispered. "Come on."
The heavy destroyer Silent Blade loomed ahead in orbit.
Its side cannons rotated.
Eron's voice echoed in her head: No matter what. You leave.
She activated the voidjump.
The Sable Hare vanished in a burst of blue-white energy just as the Blade's cannon fired. The blast passed harmlessly into empty space.
In the silence that followed, the admiral stepped onto the observation deck. He watched the stars. "They escaped."
The operative, bruised and battered, stepped beside him. "For now."
The void around Silent Verdict shimmered like oil under starlight. Its massive black hull drifted slowly beyond Lethar-07's orbital boundary, an unmoving predator in a sea of motion. From the bridge, the reptilian admiral, scaled in midnight-blue and draped in ceremonial brass, observed the fading wake of the voidjump.
The stars were silent.
Behind him, Commander F'Saar stepped forward, helmet under one arm. "Shall we begin system withdrawal?"
"No," the admiral rumbled, his tongue flicking. "Maintain low orbit. Clean up the city. The Mandate does not leave scars."
A pair of tactical analysts stood beside the main hologrid, cycling through battle footage and sensor data. One of them hesitated. "Sir, long-range scans confirm a successful escape. No signal trace remains."
F'Saar clicked his talons on the control panel. "What of the operative?"
"Recovering."
In the lower decks, within the heart of Silent Verdict, the prisoner sat alone. Eron's arms were shackled to a padded bench; his body covered in burns, one leg braced with synthmetal. A single light shone overhead. No guards. No interrogators. Just the distant hum of the ship's systems and the whisper of a distant ventilation unit.
He had stopped trying to count time. His head leaned back against the cold wall. Eyes closed. Breathing shallow.
The door hissed open.
Boots echoed on the metal floor.
The Operative entered the room, black coat tattered, his face partially exposed one side of his angular jaw showing beneath the fractured mask. He did not speak at first. He simply stood, hands behind his back, katana sheathed. His gaze what could be seen of it was unreadable.
Eron grinned bitterly. "Well," he rasped, "look who survived the fireworks."
The operative tilted his head slightly. "So did you."
"Barely." Eron gave a short, hoarse laugh. "But I'll call it worth it. They got away."
Silence lingered.
The operative walked closer, boots clicking against the floor. His movements were not predatory but calm, practiced. Measured. He stopped two paces from the bench and looked down at the Terran soldier.
"They did," he said simply.
Eron blinked, surprised. "No smart retort? No 'they can't run forever'?"
The operative's mouth quirked just enough to suggest dry amusement. "They can't. But no, I'm not here for speeches."
He crouched, resting one elbow on his knee. "Do you really think I didn't prepare for this?"
Eron frowned.
The operative continued, voice still quiet but edged with steel. "You and your friends were good. Clever. Resourceful. But I don't underestimate survivors. Not anymore."
He reached into his coat and pulled out a small holodisc.
Activated, it projected a 3D scan of the Sable Hare mid-flight highlighted was a pulsing red beacon attached beneath the sublight engine housing.
Eron stared. "No," he muttered.
"A tracker," the operative confirmed. "Subatomic woven into your ship's voiddrive shielding. Undetectable by non-UFU systems."
He stood again, deactivating the display. "Even now, others from the Obsidian Mandate are moving into position. Wherever they jump, we'll know. Wherever they hide, we'll see."
Eron looked down. His breath hitched. The weight of his sacrifice crashed inward. He had given everything to buy them time.
And it might not matter.
The operative stepped back toward the door.
"You played your part well," he said. "But your friends won't vanish. This isn't a tale where the embers fade. This is a long burn, and we are very patient." He turned to leave.
Eron's voice stopped him. "You'll never stop all of us."
The operative paused. Then spoke over his shoulder, calm as ever. "Maybe not." He walked out. The door sealed behind him.
Outside the detention wing, Black Templar guards flanked the corridor. The operative moved past them, unacknowledged, his presence is enough.
The lights dimmed behind him. Eron sat in silence, chest rising and falling. He looked down at the floor, where the light from the holodisc had briefly painted freedom in the shape of a red dot.
Elsewhere on Silent Blade, the operative returned to his private quarters. Stark. Efficient. A single weapon rack. A small shrine carved from voidstone, bearing the sigil of the Mandate an obsidian triangle over a hollowed star.
He removed his coat and set it on a hook.
Stood in silence.
Then tapped a panel on the wall.
A transmission channel opened. Faint static.
A hooded figure appeared one of the other senior agents of the Order of Verdict.
"Status?" the figure asked.
"The trace is active. Survivors are en route to unknown coordinates. Artifact data remains out of reach... for now."
"Proceed?"
"No. Let them believe they escape."
The other agent nodded slowly. "The longer the prey thinks itself free... the deeper the wound when caught."
The line disconnected. The operative sat in silence, and waited.
Far across the void, within a sliver of empty space between star systems, the Sable Hare drifted. Its systems remained dark to all but internal sensors.
Leah sat in the pilot's chair, hands trembling. Her face was pale. Exhausted. Her eyes scanned every flicker of the screen, expecting enemies even in silence.
Darik sat across from her, staring at the artifact trace chip in his hands. He turned it over slowly.
Neither spoke for a long time. Finally, Leah broke the silence.
"Do you think he made it fast?"
Darik looked up. His voice was low. "He made it count."
She nodded.
Then looked ahead into the void. "We keep going. We finish this."
Darik inserted the chip into the nav-system. Coordinates appeared. They didn't know where it led. But they had nowhere else to go.
The stars drifted past the viewing port in complete silence. Eight hours had passed since they'd escaped Lethar-07. The Sable Hare coursed through deep space on low burn, its engines flickering with minor instability. The jumpcore was half-drained, still recovering from the emergency voidjump. Inside the cockpit, the mood was brittle. The adrenaline had long worn off.
Leah's shoulders sagged over the control panel. Her eyes were bloodshot, her breath shallow. "Systems holding… but only just," she muttered, fingers brushing the nav-console. "Another voidjump like that and we might vaporize ourselves."
Darik leaned against the side bulkhead, his back stiff. His armor was scorched from the street battle, helmet discarded at his feet. "We need a place to lay low," he said quietly. "Somewhere off the main relays. The artifact data can't fall into their hands."
Leah gave a hollow chuckle. "That's assuming they're not still right behind us."
But nothing showed on the long-range scans. No UFU signals. No pursuit. Only a quiet corridor of dead stars and drifting radiation.
Then without warning the proximity alert howled.
A rip in space bloomed like a gaping wound, to their starboard side. Twisting, oily purple light cracked open the void. From it, emerged a UFU Heavy Cruiser, angular and predatory, cloaked in black and bronze.
Its name blinked across the Sable Hare's console: "Judgment Reliquary."
Leah's heart froze. "No no no no how did they find us?"
Darik shot forward. "Evasive!"
The Sable Hare banked hard, but a crimson tractor beam lanced out from the cruiser's underbelly, catching them mid-turn. The ship groaned violently as systems failed one by one. Leah fought the controls in vain as sparks flew from the dash.
"We're caught," she whispered.
"They tracked us," Darik growled. "That fucking bastard..."
The cruiser loomed larger, blotting out the stars. A transmission came through no video feed, only a chilling voice: male, composed, and smooth like polished glass.
"Do not resist. You are in possession of stolen classified data. By authority of the United Federation Union and the Obsidian Mandate, you are now subjects of Verdict Inquiry."
Aboard the Judgment Reliquary, hangar doors opened like the mouth of a beast. The Sable Hare was pulled in slowly, still struggling slightly in the tractor beam's grip. Inside, Black Templar soldiers in full black and gray plated void armor waited silently in two columns, rifles aimed, unmoving.
On a raised platform above the hangar, another Mandate Operative stood taller than the one on Lethar-07. His mask was symmetrical, polished to a mirror-like sheen. A single blue sigil pulsed on his forehead. At his side hung twin voidpistols and a curved plasma-forged blade. His presence was... still. Serene. Terrifying.
He observed without a word as the battered Sable Hare landed hard on the hangar floor. Steam vented from the cracks in the hull.
Moments later, the side hatch hissed and cracked open. Leah stepped out first, weapon drawn, but six Templars moved instantly within two seconds, her rifle was shot from her hands by a stunbolt, and she was tackled to the ground.
Darik followed, gun raised high. He screamed and fired wildly, but his shots reflected off shielded armor. A pair of Templars rushed him and pinned him down, disarming him before slamming a stun-shock gauntlet into his back.
He crumpled.
A technician droid hovered beside the operative.
"Data drive located on tertiary console," it reported. "Intact. Decryption in progress."
The operative did not nod. He merely spoke once.
"Secure the ship. Isolate the prisoners."
The Templars dragged Leah and Darik away, each to opposite sides of the hangar. The doors slammed shut behind them. The Sable Hare was sealed in magnetic locks.
Leah awoke to silence and humming steel.
The cell was dimly lit, a thin beam of white light overhead. The walls were slate black, layered in security seals. A single camera floated above the ceiling. She sat on a bench, hands bound behind her.
Her body ached. Her shoulder throbbed where she'd been stunned. Her mind drifted, scattered. She tried not to think of Eron. Tried not to think of what would come next.
She didn't have to wait long. The door opened with a low hiss.
The same masked Operative entered the room. Unlike the one on Lethar-07, this one moved like a shadow fluid, elegant, deadly. He took a seat across from her, folding his gloved hands.
Neither spoke for a moment. Then, calmly, he said: "You are very far from home, Lieutenant."
Leah didn't respond.
The Operative leaned forward. "The data you've stolen contains classified records from Station Telur-9. Artifact analysis. Void anomalies. Psi-signatures. This is not something your Federation is prepared to meddle with."
Her voice cracked, dry. "We didn't steal it. We recovered it. You're the ones erasing everything."
The operative tilted his head. "We are the ones containing what must not spread."
A moment passed. His mask whirred softly. "You're not fools. But you chose to disobey Mandate jurisdiction. That makes you dangerous."
Leah stared at the wall. "We were trying to survive."
The operative stood, cold light falling across his polished mask. "You will be kept in isolation until Supreme Command decides your fate. Until then… rest."
He turned and left. The door sealed shut behind him with a thud. In a neighboring wing of the vessel, Darik was held in a similar cell. His knuckles were bruised. His jaw had dried blood crusting the edge. He sat with his head low, not from exhaustion but from rage.
He had seen Leah dragged the other way. He had seen the Templars take the chip. He had failed. The door opened. This time, no one entered. A speaker crackled to life overhead.
"Mr. Darik Senu, born on the planet Helvar, Greater Terran Federation. You are formally under Mandate custody. The data you acquired is now in protected analysis. You will not be executed. Yet."
He clenched his fists. "Fucking cowards."
"You will be processed. Your survival depends on your cooperation."
He spat at the camera lens. It retracted into the wall. The lights dimmed again.
Back in the command center of Judgment Reliquary, the second Operative stood in silent conference with his adjutant, a thin humanoid alien with crystal-white skin and six cybernetic eyes. The data drive was hooked into a high-level decrypt station.
Lines of glowing glyphs streamed across a vertical screen.
"Precursor glyphs cross-referenced," the adjutant reported. "Voidsignal A-7 patterns confirmed. The artifacts were drawing psionic energy through subdimensional resonance. Their function remains... unclear."
The Operative nodded once. "Forward the results to Archive Theta. Seal the incident."
The adjutant hesitated. "And the survivors?"
"Keep them apart. Make them quietly. Then render them to the nearest mandate base for memory erasure."
He turned to the viewport. Far ahead, a series of red lights flashed across the ship signaling the preparation for exit.
"Prepare for voidjump."
In the cell, Leah stood and pressed her ear to the wall.
Darik was somewhere beyond it. She could feel it.
Not even a full day had passed since Eron's death. Since the mission went to hell. Since their lives spiraled into Union control.
She breathed in sharply. No sobbing. No despair. Just resolve. "We made it off the station," she whispered to herself. "We made it off the planet. We'll make it out of this."
The stars shifted outside the small viewport slit, now showing a narrowing aperture. Then, with a gut-wrenching lurch, the cruiser prepared its fusioncore.
A low, bone-deep hum rippled through the ship as the engines spooled.
Outside the Judgment Reliquary, space shimmered.
And in a single flash of distorted reality, the ship vanished leaving behind only silence and fading radiation trails.
The void was empty once again.
26 hours later
The sky above Lethar-07 remained a noxious cocktail of industrial haze and violet-tinted storm clouds, swirling like bruises over a battered world. Beneath the sky, the once-pristine central tower of OreCore's planetary headquarters stood cracked along its upper archway, one side listing by three degrees barely noticeable to the eye, but glaringly obvious to the building's structural integrity monitors, which had been beeping for the last four hours and thirty-seven minutes.
Director Vass Gorrik stood at the floor-to-ceiling window of his office on the 212th floor, sipping cold recaf that had gone bitter sometime between crisis report #78 and catastrophic damage invoice #143. His suit was wrinkled. His tie was gone. His hair was in retreat, but valiantly hanging on, matted against a sweat-slicked forehead. His eyes were dark sockets ringed with the exhaustion of someone who had not slept since before the orbital firestorm had begun.
Behind him, a digital wall displayed a rotating set of holoreports each layered with flashing icons, blinking alarms, and bright red financial losses. Overlayed in the bottom corner:
OreCore Lethar Operations – Casualty/Damage Report
"REDACTED" – Submitted to Greater Lethar Mining Arbitration Bureau
Civic Complaint Queue: 34,763 items pending
From across the room, his personal assistant, a young woman named Chera with visibly frayed nerves and three styluses tucked behind one ear, cleared her throat and spoke gently, as though addressing a volatile explosive.
"Sir… it's been twenty-six hours since the UFU voidship Silent Blade departed orbit. We've… received their final communiqués."
Vass turned slowly, like a man half-fossilized. "They remembered?"
Chera nodded, tapping her pad. "Yes. Three separate correspondences. All digitally encrypted and verified through authenticated UFU diplomatic channels."
"Hmm. Tragic. I was enjoying the silence."
One of the other board members, a broad-shouldered woman in a crushed velvet blazer, sighed audibly from the conference table. "If we survive this week, we should put that quote on the wall."
Vass gestured lazily toward her. "Approved. Carve it in steel."
Chera continued, stepping forward. "The first is from the Office of Foreign Affairs, sub-directorate of Territorial Cooperation, under the Ministry of Peace. A compensation packet has been authorized."
She pulled it up on the wall display. Numbers flickered across the screen.
"Forty trillion standard credits," she announced, with the deadpan solemnity of someone who knew it sounded more exciting than it actually was.
A quiet pause followed.
Vass blinked once. "Only forty?" he asked.
The board members around the room stirred. One choked on his synth-coffee. "You're joking," muttered another. "That's… That's the GDP of a mid-tier core world!"
"And pocket change to the Union," Vass replied. "I once watched a senator in the UFU burn a thousand-credit bill to prove a point in a speech about food scarcity on their outer worlds territories. On a live channel."
He walked toward the table, dragging the holo-display down to eye level. "They've labeled this… 'Operational Compensation for Inconvenience to Civilian Infrastructure During Mandate-Priority Emergency Event'."
Chera raised a hand. "There's a footnote, sir."
"Of fucking course there is."
She read aloud, deadpan: "Amount determined appropriate by Sector Arbitrary Conflict Evaluation Protocol (SACEP) Revision 7.12 under Exception Clause Theta-D."
"'Theta-D'?" Vass eye's squinted. "Isn't that the clause they use when planets accidentally get caught in military drills?"
Chera nodded. "That's correct. It's also used for collateral damage during authorized anti-piracy campaigns."
One of the board members snorted. "Or when a Mandate operative drives a Black Templar division through downtown residential."
Vass ignored him, already opening the second file.
It came from the Obsidian Mandate itself transmitted through a tightly wound chain of proxies and encrypted relays. The message blinked slowly in black and grey, bearing the insignia of the agency: a singular obsidian triangle over three slit pupils.
Vass tapped play.
The message unfurled in a minimalist, monotone voice clearly synthetic.
"Director Vass Gorrik. OreCore Lethar Operations.
Mandate Operation: V-772-B successful. Primary targets acquired. Secondary targets neutralized or pending. Civilian and corporate disruption calculated within acceptable margin parameters.
On behalf of the Order of Blade, please accept this formal Notice of Tactical Disruption Resolution Acknowledgement. We recognize your cooperation and logistical compliance.
Local planetary infrastructure was deemed expendable under Section 49-B of Directive Silence.
You may consider this correspondence your certified apology."
The message ended with a quiet tone.
Vass stared.
Then barked a laugh. One of those long, slow, sleep-deprived cackles that hinted at madness. He stumbled back into his chair and laughed again, clutching his forehead.
"They apologized by telling us we were expendable."
"No, sir," Chera corrected gently. "They said our infrastructure was expendable. Not you, personally."
"Ah. How sweet of them."
The holo-display chimed again. Chera winced and tapped her data-slate.
"Ah… here it is. The third apology," she said flatly, as though this routine had grown surreal even for her. "From the Supreme Council itself. Timestamped twenty hours ago, encrypted level Omega, delayed in relay routing due to well, voidstorm interference."
Another window opened on the central office holoscreen, this time bearing the austere black-gold seal of the Supreme Council of the United Federation Union. A dignified, baritone voice began to play, unmistakably pre-recorded.
"To the corporate administration of the planetary body Lethar-07, E-43 Quadrant, we extend a formal note of absolution and strategic rationale, under Clause 47-Beta of Interstellar Ordinance."
Gorrik's brow twitched.
"We acknowledge the disruption caused by recent Mandate-sanctioned activities and recognize the material impact sustained. It is our official stance that Lethar-07's urban proximity to a high-value threat vector rendered it an unavoidable tactical staging ground. Your cooperation, willing or not, is noted in our archives. May your planetary governance persist in resilience."
A long pause. Then, in the driest tone imaginable:
"End transmission."
There was a silence in the boardroom. A very long silence.
Director Vass Gorrik slowly turned his head toward the projection, blinked once, and then looked back to the table of execs, half of whom looked like they'd just been informed their families were being tax-audited by a dying star.
"That's it?" asked Jalv Trogan, one of the mid-level division heads, in a voice pinched with disbelief. "That's the apology? They They practically called us collateral damage."
"They did call us collateral damage," muttered Cendi Molvar, Head of Logistics, staring down at her coffee like it had wronged her.
Chera's voice was once again neutral, professional, and slightly amused. "They also sent a complimentary flag of the UFU with a note that reads, and I quote, 'Continue striving toward excellence within federation peripheries.'"
Vass snorted so loudly it was almost a laugh. Almost.
He stood up slowly, walked to the panoramic window again, and surveyed the crater where Sector Twelve's industrial fusion core had used to be. From here, he could see distant cranes and atmospheric repair drones buzzing like flies across the metallic wounds of his city.
A sudden explosion of messages began pinging across his desk console over seventy new missives.
He didn't look at them. He picked up a small cup of synth-tea, took one slow sip, and said: "I want everyone out of my office in the next five minutes."
Chera blinked. "Sir?"
"Everyone," he repeated calmly. "Tell the sector heads, damage teams, resourcing auditors, and diplomatic liaisons to reroute every further meeting to the Assistant Director's docket. Effective immediately."
The room froze.
Gorrik turned back toward them, eyes bloodshot and smile dry as vacuum ash. "I have reached the maximum legally sanctioned number of planetary crises a sentient mammal can process in one week."
Trogan raised a hand, bewildered. "But the next budget quarter starts in—"
"—I will personally ignite the next budget quarter if it walks through that blasted door," Vass interrupted, his voice now measured with the cadence of a man on the brink of divine revelation.
"Chera," he continued, placing his empty teacup on the console. "Please schedule me a vacation. Preferably somewhere with a breathable atmosphere or sentient lifeforms. No cell signal. No subspace relays. No Union presence."
She looked up. "Length of stay, sir?"
"Let's say… one full planetary rotation of Urthon - 09."
Chera's brow lifted. "That's seventy-six standard days."
Gorrik didn't blink. "Good. Just enough time to remember what silence sounds like."
He began walking to his office doors as the board members awkwardly stood, collecting datapads and briefcases with mechanical numbness. One brave soul the internal PR coordinator opened his mouth.
Vass raised a finger. "No press releases. No interviews. Just tell them the city was unexpectedly visited by a traveling theater troupe with strong opinions about infrastructure."
The coordinator paused, slowly lowered his datapad, and nodded in fear and respect.
With a sigh, Gorrik pushed open the doors to his private office chamber. The soft hum of the interior greeted him. As they closed behind him, the chaos of boardroom politics faded.
Chera stood outside a moment later, datapad in hand.
"I've submitted the vacation request to Human Resources," she said through the comm. "They approved it immediately. You now have 'Executive Mental Restoration Time' scheduled and locked under emergency clause forty-two."
"Excellent," Vass murmured, already reclining in the leather cradle of his personal gravity chair. He glanced at the ceiling.
"Chera?"
"Yes, sir?"
"If anyone from the Mandate or union contacts me again…"
"Yes?"
"Tell them I'm dead."
Pause.
"Officially or mentally?"
"Yes."
The camera would've pulled back then if there were one out through the dome of the central tower, past the cratered skyline, beyond the orbiting debris trails.
Past Silent Blade, long gone.
Past even the burning outlines of collapsed foundries and fractured arcology spires.
Just one man, in one ruined tower, clutching one final shred of dignity, floating on the absurd raft of bureaucracy.
Vacation pending.